67 GTS 4-Speed: Daily Summer Driver

Happy New Year to All!

With the extended weekend came some work on the car and new year resolutions. I have decided that I would like to have the car in paint, and the engine and transmission installed by the end of 2016. Its a pretty hefty goal with money and paint prep being the biggest hurtles to over come. I have a second job that I work on some weekends to get a little extra cash so that should hopefully help. I kinda figured the longer this stays in pieces the greater chance life has of getting in the way. I wanted a hot rod ever since I was 8 after seeing the Dukes of Hazzard, so I figured I waited long enough lol.

As for the work. I tried measuring the brake rotors to see if they are usable and couldnt find a thickness specification in the manual or online. But I found that they do have new ones for a reasonable price, so it looks like I am getting new rotors! lol. I also hammered out the bearing races to get a part number for the inner and outer bearing since I couldnt find any part store listing bearings for the disc brakes. They only list bearings for the 9" & 10" brakes. However I did not see a part number on the inner bearing seal... So I dont know what I am going to do there.

I did get the steering knuckles painted

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And I got the lower seat cushion trim pieces cleaned, polished and the back side painted.

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I was impressed that these pieces are metal with a vinyl covering. I was expecting them to be plastic. I also got the four trim pieces polished that surround the deck lid trim panel. They came out pretty nice

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I also got the rear trim piece for 70 Charger polished and attempted to polish the rear trim panel for the GTS. The polishing wheels that I was using for everything I polished to this point didnt seem to work to well. So I went about polishing that piece according to the sticky posted on this site about polishing trim pieces. Where you start out with something like 400 grit wet sand, work your way up to 2000 then hit it with some polishing wheels. Thats what I did in a small area and I was very impressed with the results. So I started sanding the entire piece for 400 grit.

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I took this picture to show the beginning (on the left) and after the 400 grit (on the right). It took a couple hours to get the whole thing done with 400 grit... So this is a very, very long process. Kinda sucks because this is what I am going to have to do for the two sets of head light doors and two grilles (one for the GTS and one for the 68 Convertible). I want to be able to paint the inside of the doors in spring (which is black) and at that point I would want to be able to shoot these trim pieces that need black in that run as well. So when the car starts to come together next year those pieces can just be installed (hopefully over winter).